H    is for help! you know I'm alive
E    for estranged, expressionistics
        contrive
R    eading rhymes- revise, review
        reprise, recite- rethink and renue.
O    verwhelming-
        vertly, overdone-
         bsessive...
o  ntology~
      
Still, I'm the one.
I'm the hero, of the story-
Don't need to be saved.

This is humanity.
It’s flying and falling and
𝘈𝘳𝘵.
When your heart swells
Like the sun emerging
From the sea.

This is humanity.
Looking at all the faces
And seeing behind their eyes.

𝘏𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘰,
I whisper,
𝘕𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘦𝘦𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶.

i fall asleep in the back of ubers, to the sounds
of middle-aged drivers talking to their loved ones
giving advice, the smell of spice, my temple on the window
just playing a mental jeopardy with the meanings behind
those accented words of languages i don't understand
perhaps, once upon a time, i did, but now, no longer

i sleep like a stranger in my own home, climbing
into my bed without caution, with atrophying bones
it's a debilitating exhaustion, it's characteristic of aging
of falling and forgetting about the friendships and benefits
that broke through my bed slats, plus the flash-lit attempts
to fix the unfixable with feminist texts and crumpled cash

i dream about my mother as another, and her neck
remains untouched, perhaps only adorned with pearls
so wide, and so bright, and the garage door is always unlocked
it's comfort, it's nostalgia, it's the furthest i've been from home
and when the radio turns on, i wake to unfamiliar laughter, and
"i miss my dog, and i miss falling in love," and everything's amiss
and all i can do is sit here, tipping a stranger as i reminisce

"You're mine, you!" whispers in the back of the room. A subtle reminder that I don't think you'll ever leave. You're weird. You're broken. You're everything I am. You're everything I could never be.

When my Dad asks me about my day, or lays out plates like I'm still a little kid. I dream about dull days. Those stupid ruts we couldn't shake. You're mine, you.

It's just the flickering lights. Not your eyes. Not the bitter taste of your white tongue. My ****** gums. The ache of waiting. Of running but never making it. Always looking for the silver lining of your glasses on my nightstand. My crooked nose. Gentle reminders that you'll never leave. Warm and carmine reminders that you will never leave.

My heart should be well-schooled. Because you know I've been fooled in the past. But it's always beating just too late for love to last. "Your hair looks like champagne under this lamp." Do you remember how hard that made you laugh?

That one night we cracked the window, just to let the smoke fly out. I remember thinking "it'll go further than we ever will." As the trumpets began to sing, your bony little fingers started reaching at the stars. It's funny it's not the stars I see, it's always you.

But we'll carry on. We'll carry on. After all, I know there could never be another you.

With dry pods and bags

filled with granules we're rising --


little whirls of wind.

I listen to male artists,
Men who remind me of my father,
And his pain,
And my pain.
I imagine they sing to me,
Protect me,
Love me,
Give me all I've never been given before,
Everything I was supposed to feel,
Everything that was supposed to show me how people work.
I listen to deep, strained voices and reflect,
Connect to things I’ll never experience.
Men are angry,
Worthy of their feelings,
Allowed to unleash their rage in screams and electric guitars and unnecessarily loud drum solos.
I listen to music sung by men,
But I also listen to Stevie Nicks,
Joni Mitchell,
Janis Joplin,
Joan Baez,
Even Dolly Parton.
Hell, even Olivia Rodrigo.
I listen to women who are angry,
Angry and still women,
Surviving through agony and still women,
“Leather and lace,”
Black clothes and black makeup,
Singing about beauty and moonlight and darkness,
Female rage.
I don't have to be at peace to be a woman,
I don't have to be happy to be a woman,
I don't have to be pretty to be a woman,
You don’t have to like me for me to still be a woman.
Let me be angry,
Let me feel pain,
Let me be lost,
Let me like the darkness,
Let me find comfort in the night,
Let me chase impossible dreams and impossible feelings,
Let me feel everything I feel.
Women are put in a box of emotions,
Too sensitive,
Too dramatic,
Too simple.
I am not sensitive or dramatic or simple,
Don't put me in that box,
Don’t tell me what I am,
Don’t tell me how to feel,
Don’t tell me what my feelings mean,
What they make me,
Don’t project your weakness onto me,
I am not weak,
I am not weak,
I am not weak.
Let me be raw and witchy and honest,
Let me be intelligent and intuitive,
Let me see more than you'll ever see in the world,
Let me be frustrated and misunderstood and just a little too loud,
Let me be a woman,
Let me be me the way I should be.